Painting the birds, fish and others

For art 1's final watercolor project I decided I wanted to do something different.  So where else do you go for ideas but Pinterest.  It was on that lovely site that I ran into an image from this website http://createartwithme.com/2013/04/08/border-art-lesson/ .  I liked how Michelle East had incorporated both watercolor and then an india ink border.

  I did have to make a change and use sharpie instead of india ink because I think my ink has gone bad.  I didn't know that could happen, but mine stinks so bad that I even refuse to have the bottles open.  I guess I will be pitching all of that this year and buying new.

Anyways, we had worked with several different watercolor practice projects.  I am actually really happy with how those worked this year and how I feel like the students got a better idea of how to paint with watercolors.  I then told them that for this project they would need to pick an animal, insect or fish from a real photo (so no cartoons or photoshop creatures).   I told them to look for bright and colorful, especially since I would not allow them to use black in their piece.  If they needed black or a dark color they needed to mix colors until they got what they needed.  Some struggle and complain about this, but I think it teaches them to think outside of the box and to be resourceful for themselves.  Also black watercolor can spread like a wildfire if it is not controlled and ruin a piece so fast that I consider avoiding it as a safety precaution.

After they drew the animal, they had to draw in some habitat.  Not a lot, but just enough to add something to the outside edge of the paper.  I then had them draw a border that came into the paper 2" from the edge.  I then told them that the entire animal had to be painted even if it came outside of the box (and I told them it should come out somewhere) and they had to paint whatever background was inside of the box.  After they painted I had them use sharpie to add to the outside with outlines and texture to their overlapping background pieces.  I can see how india ink would get darker and probably a little bit more effective.  I will try that step next year.

Sam S.

Bella J.

Yeva S.

Madisyn V.

Morgan B.

Madison S.

Brooke A.

Alex G.

Mikayla R.

Paige Q.

Morgan H.

Mykah W.

I put Paige's in there because she did a beautiful job, but yes she used black which was against the rules.